Alvar Palmgren

Infobox Scientist
name = Alvar Palmgren
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birth_date = 1880
birth_place = Finland
death_date = 1960
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nationality = FIN
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field = botany, plant ecology
work_institutions = University of Helsinki
alma_mater = University of Helsinki
doctoral_advisor = J.P. Norrlin
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author_abbrev_bot = Palmgr.
author_abbrev_zoo =
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Alvar Palmgren (1880-1960) was a Finnish botanist and plant ecologist.

Palmgren studied botany at the University of Helsinki under professor J.P. Norrlin. He graduated (Fil.kand.) in 1906 and obtained his Ph.D. in 1914. He became docent of botany at the University of Helsinki 1916 and professor of botany at the same university in 1928 (from 1938, the first in the special Swedish-language chair of botany). He retired in 1950. [Collander, Runar (1965) The History of Botany in Finland. With an Appendix on Forest Science by Yrjö Ilvessalo. Societas Scientiarum Fennica Helsinki, 159 pp.]

Palmgren worked as a systematic botanist with microspecies of Taraxacum, Hieracium and other genera. As an ecologist, he worked of the nature of plant communities. He supported the ideas of Henry Gleason on the individualistic behavious of species in community assembly already from the 1920'es [ [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0007-196X%28198704%2F06%2939%3A2%3C205%3AALFDG%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N A Letter from Henry A. Gleason, written 1952, printed in Brittonia 39: 2 (1987), pp. 205-209.] ] . He wrote early on the role isolation and stochastic events in the distribution of species, while his contemporary biology was largely deterministicPalmgren, A. (1921) Die Entfernung als pflanzengeographischer Faktor (Isolation as a phytogeographical factor). Series Acta Societatis pro Fauna et Flora Fennica 49 (1)] [Palmgren, A. (1925) Die Artenzahl als pflanzengeographischer Charakter sowie der Zufall und die säkulare Landhebung als pflanzengeographischer Faktoren. Ein pflanzengeographische Entwurf, basiert auf Material aus dem åländischen Schärenarchipel (The number of species as phytogeographical character as well as chance and land uplift as phytogeographical factors, based on studies in the Åland Islands). Fennia 46 (2).] [Palmgren, A. (1926) Chance as an element in plant geography. In: Proceedings of the International Congress of Plant Sciences, Ithaca, New York (Duggar, B.M. ed.) vol. 1: 591-602] . In the 1920'es, Palmgren entered in a heated dispute with the Swiss botanist and phytogeographer Paul Jaccard over the interpretation of Jaccard's species-to-genus ratio. Palmgren had observed a decrease in species richness from west to east in the Åland Islands, his main geographical scene of scientific inquiry. He interpreted this as an effect of isolation from the Swedish mainland to the west, and the associated lower species-to-genus ratio as a randomsampling effect. In contrast, Jaccard held that the lower species-to-genus ratio towards the east was an effect of decreased diversity in habitat conditions and increased competitive exclusion [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0305-0270%28198207%299%3A4%3C363%3ASRIBAH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 Järvinen, Olli (1982) Species-to-genus ratios in biogeography: a historical note. Journal of Biogeography 9 (4): 363-370.] ] . The essence of this disagreement have had repercussions in the work of Charles Elton [ [http://doi.dx.org/10.2307/1625 Elton, C. (1946) Competition and the structure of ecological communities. Journal of Animal Ecology 15 (1): 54-68] ] and in the equally infected debate between Daniel Simberloff and Jared Diamond in the 1970'es.

Palmgren was on the board of Societas pro Fauna et Flora Fennica from 1916. He was chairman 1920-1957.

In addition to his botanical work, Palmgren made an impressive political act as a 22-year old student. He initiated and lead a movement among young Finnish men to refuse conscription service in the Russian Emperial Army. A rescript of 1900 by Nicholas II of Russia, sovereign of the Grand Duchy of Finland, put Finnish conscripts under the Russian military top. The 'strike' movement forced a withdrawal by 1905.

Alvar Palmgren was the father of the zoologist Pontus Palmgren (born 1907).

References

External links

* [http://web.abo.fi/~bwikgren/biologer/PalmgrenA.htm Swedish biography with portrait]